Classic Archives (Interviews, Concerts)

I love interviews of those in the arts (music, movies, comedy) and spend a lot of time searching. There’s many great sites, like archives.org for example, and many others. Does anyone else collect/upload and try to share these archives? Maybe tips?

There's so many concerts out there that haven't been released, but because of their age, many are copyright-free (until a band does an official release), but the point isn't to sell, it's to trade, or to just share. Lots of great audio out there if you search hard enough.

A while back, I paid $40 (which is dirt cheap) for “Mort Sahl” from the Pacifica Archives with no other description. When I asked for more information, trying to avoid purchasing something I already had, they told it’s all they had, and that the archives are on reels, in a basement, and they only digitize them when they receive payment. Well, they had to refund my money because the reel had gone bad. Universal Studios had multiple fires, destroying MILLIONS of master recordings, including Billie Holiday and many others.

I spend about 50 hours searching each month. I usually don’t find anything, but surprisingly, I did find two Mort Sahl shows. Here’s one tip. If you are searching for a show for example, try to search others in the program, especially the most popular, although there’s a niche audience, and I’d search them all. In the last year, everything I have found was something I couldn’t find through Google, and sometimes, just using a different search engine helped.

So, if you or someone you know has old radio checks, audio concerts, etc., please upload them. On YouTube, you can upload them, and they will do an automatic copyright check before you Publish, FYI.